“No”
“Oughtn’t you to have done so?”
“I suppose I ought,” she answered, “but—well, as a maffact, he would
probably have disapproved of Chelsea and made me stay with him. For
another reason, I didn’t really think he wanted to see me. We’ve very
little in common, you know, Dombeen.”
“It’s a wise child who knows when she doesn’t want her father to know
she’s in town,” I said. “I’m afraid you’re right,” I added: “you haven’t
much in common. But you oughtn’t to presume on that, ought you?”
“Why not?” she asked, and upon my word, I couldn’t reply. Why should
children be dutiful any more than their parents?
If Eustace took no interest in Rose, why should Rose take interest in
him? Logically, it is the older who should set the example: the more
mature, the person who is responsible for the child’s existence. I doubt
very much if there is any natural affinity between parents and children:
pride of ownership on the one side and dependence on the other leads to
the creation of a bond. Remove babies at birth and do not let them meet
their mothers again until they are grown up, and (in spite of the
romantic and sentimental novelists) I doubt if there would be any natural
recognition, any calling of the deeps.
Vera, Rose went on, had done a little work—not much—and then they had
gone out to visit other studios, where Vera’s friends lived. I could
have no idea how jolly they all were. People talked about the jealousy
of artists, but for her part she didn’t believe a word of it. There they
were, all so keen and simple, wearing the most delightful old clothes,
pleased to see each other, pleased to praise each other’s work—genuinely,
too—absolutely genuinely—and then directly it was too dark to go on, or
they didn’t feel in the mood, off they went to dinner at one of the Soho
places, and then they either talked about painting, ever so
interestingly, or danced or sang. It was the most wonderful life.
But I mustn’t think for a moment that they were slackers. Not a bit of
it. As a maffact, they worked frightfully hard. But artists, I must
remember, don’t divide up their lives into work and play as other people
do—clerks and merchants and lawyers and so on: they mix the two together.
That’s what makes them so delightful.
“They all have such charming things,” she said, looking round at my
furniture—Victorian mostly, not old enough to be beautiful—with a kind of
disdain. “No matter how poor they are, they always seem to have money
for ‘bits.’ They’re always on the look-out for them, and they have such
wonderful eyes. They can see things under inches of dust. Going about
among the old furniture and old curiosity shops with Vera and her friends
was an education, and such a lark too! You and I must go over to
Lowcester, Dombeen, and rout about in the old shops there. I know so
much more about things than I did a month ago. I know the difference
between Heppelwhite and Chippendale and Spode and Crown Derby. And I
mean to learn it all.”
She had been to the National Gallery three times, and to the Tate, and to
several little exhibitions, and to the Café Royal one evening, and to two
plays. But the most terrific thing of all was this—she had seen John.
“John who?” I asked.
“Not John anything,” she replied, shocked at my ignorance. “It’s his
last name, but no one ever calls him anything else—John the artist: much
the strongest painter we’ve got. Vera asked him to come and see my
things, and he came and he likes them. He says I ought to make a real
name if I study properly and go to a life class and devote myself to
drawing for a while. It’s my drawing that’s weak, he says.”
It was then that Rose suddenly asked, after a brief silence, “How much
money have I got?”
I told her that she had no money at all, unless her father chose to give
her any. He reimbursed me more or less for what she cost me, and her
school accounts and so forth had gone to him. It was all very irregular;
of course she ought to have an allowance by this time. She was eighteen.
Her face lost its radiance. “Must I ask him?” she said.
“It depends on what you want it for,” I answered.
“I want to live in Chelsea,” she said, “and really learn to paint.”
“O!” I said. “If it had been for anything else I might have been able to
contribute, but I can’t for that. That is too drastic. You must ask
your father. Besides,” I said, “I could hardly bring myself to finance a
scheme which leaves me so high and dry.”
“Poor Dombeen!” she said. “But you’d soon get used to being alone. And
I’d come down often for the week-end. As a maffact, you’d hardly miss
me.”
“Train up a child and away she goes,” I quoted.
“But you wouldn’t have me not be independent?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Everything is all right: just as it should be. An old
man must expect to lose a young girl just when she is most companionable.
But you must concede him a little melancholy. After all, it is a
compliment to you, so concede it purely in that light. It’s as proper
for me to regret your going as for you to want to go.”
“You dear old thing!” she said. “I hate to leave you, but what should
one do? If you absolutely needed me, of course . . . but you don’t.
You’re strong, you go about, you have your prints and your gardening.”
“And even if I hadn’t,” I said, “I should not allow you to stay. If I am
to collapse, it shall not be an artist on the threshold of life with a
passion to express herself in oils who shall bring my beef-tea. That
would be too unfair. But you must understand that nothing can be done
until your father consents.”
“I’ll write to him to-night,” she said. “Unless you will?”
“No,” I replied firmly. “I’ll go a long way to help you, but I won’t
sign my own death warrant. No seaman beseeches to be marooned.”
* * * * *
Eustace replied that he thought he might be willing, but it would be well
to discuss the matter properly. Would she stay with him for a few days
and bring some of her work with her.
“How can I show it to him?” she asked.
“You must,” I said. “After all, he is your father.”
“But it’s so—so—personal,” she said.
* * * * *
“Well?” I asked, when she came back a few days later.
“I’ve bored him terribly,” she said.
“What makes you think so?”
“He never knew what to say. Besides, his habits are fixed. I ruined his
breakfast because he couldn’t read the paper. I would much rather he had
read it, but he was trying to behave so beautifully and he made
conversation instead. This means that he never caught up with the news
all day, and that’s a very serious thing. I made the awful mistake too
of opening the paper before he did, before he came in—this was on the
first morning—and no woman, it seems, must do that.
“O dear, I’m not right at all. As a maffact, Dombeen, you’ve spoilt me.
And I’m too impulsive. You mustn’t be impulsive with men, except perhaps
just one or two, and those only for a little while and when they’re very
pleased with themselves.
“I did other terrible things too. I used the telephone frivolously. I
even rang up the exchange once just to ask the time, and he heard me. I
had done it often enough when he was out, because my watch had stopped
and his clock was away being mended; but he came in just as I was ringing
and I never saw anyone so pained.
“And O! I left the electric light burning in the hall all one night. He
was perfectly nice and kind and polite, but I could see that every day
something new was being inscribed on his heart, like Queen Mary’s. I
don’t mean our Queen Mary. I mean the Queen Mary who lost Calais—the
bloody one.
“He didn’t like my painting at all,” she went on, “but he was very gentle
about it. He was always gentle—gentle and cool—and that is so depressing
after a while. Disturbing, too. He took me to the Tate Gallery on
Saturday afternoon, and to the National on Sunday, and showed me the
pictures he likes best. He has two photogravures after Leader in his
bedroom.”
“But have you decided anything?” I asked. It was all I wanted to know
and she was postponing and postponing the moment of the verdict.
“Yes,” she said, but without much enthusiasm.
“Well?”
“Well, he won’t hear of independent rooms in Chelsea. He doesn’t like
Chelsea. It’s too irresponsible, he says. But he agrees to a
Hostel—he’s inquiring about them now—and the Slade, I may go to the Slade
and live in a Hostel, for three years. It isn’t what I wanted, of
course, but it’s the thin end of the wedge. I’ll be able to go to
Chelsea to see Vera and the others pretty nearly whenever I like, and the
Slade isn’t so bad. Orpen was there and John was there. What do you
think?”
“When do you want to begin?” I asked dully.
“Well, the next term,” she said. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
* * * * *
It was our last evening. To-morrow the little mawf was to fly away
towards those great flames, London, Art, and Independence, all capable of
scorching very acutely. To Rose the hours were all a prelude to
adventure; to me a promise of loneliness. For so long this graceful, gay
enthusiast had been lighting up my house; and now I was to be forsaken.
At seventy that is no particular joke.
To what extent Rose had pondered on what might lightly be called the
selfishness of her programme, I cannot say. Perhaps not at all, but I
think that very unlikely. My own attitude to her desertion, although I
did my best to make it whimsical, must have turned her thoughts that way.
But having pondered, might she not very properly have decided that such
selfishness was her only course? Our duty is not always to others.
Comparatively lost as I was going to be, I certainly did not want her to
make the sacrifice of remaining. Why should she? What right has seventy
to cramp the style of twenty? Too many young people are harnessed—more
than harnessed, shackled—to the old, for me to be willing to add to their
number. I have watched youthful lives being sapped and thwarted in this
way ever since I have been in practice, and I had always vowed that never
would I be guilty of a similar tyranny. And now here I was with the
temptation!
But it was not the temptation that it might have been had Rose come to me
and said, “Look here, Dombeen, I can’t leave you all alone. It isn’t
fair. I’ll give up this London scheme and we’ll go on being happy
together.” Even then, however, I hope I should have been strong enough
to say No. In fact, I know I should; for what is the use of binding a
girl of eighteen, or letting her bind herself? Art she might relinquish;
but what would happen when Love appeared? How could I keep her to her
promise then? Better face the music, take the fence, cut the knot now,
and be brave about it.
* * * * *
We sat long after dinner on that last evening. Rose’s boxes were packed,
her room at the Hostel and her easel at the Slade awaited her. She had
said all her good-byes in the neighbourhood, and no doubt more than one
of her dancing friends had her address in his pocket-book. In short,
practically every boat was burnt. All our talk, therefore, was of the
future. If Eustace was not too unwilling, she said, she should go to
Paris after a while. As a maffact, Paris was, of course, the place.
London was only a makeshift. She would probably go on to Paris
anyway—father or no father. Because one must be thorough. London was
looking up—everybody said so—Chelsea had produced some wonderful
things—but for an artist Paris was the true Alma Mater. Even Chelsea had
had to go to Paris first.
It was all a question of money. Surely when she was twenty-one her
father would allow her something reasonable?
“Not for the purpose of doing anything of which he might disapprove,” I
said.
O well, she would see. She would begin at the Slade, anyway, and make up
her mind gradually. “But of course,” she repeated, “Paris is the place.
Sooner or later I must be there. I can hear it calling all the while.”
Having said those words, Rose left the window where she had been standing
and walked into the garden, whither no doubt she expected me to follow
her.
I was about to do so when there was a knock at the door and Suzanne
entered, with a curious excited flush on her face.
She stood there a moment, as though trying to speak, and then, stepping
aside, made room for some one in a black dress and veil, and was gone.
“Dombeen!” cried the stranger, and buried her thin, tired face on my
shoulder.
Of what I said I have no memory. I can remember only stroking her head
and hushing her like a child.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry,” I may have murmured; but it was foolish, for
tears were her best friends.
* * * * *
“Rose?” she asked at last. “Is she here?”